[Chocolate and vanilla mille-feuille]


I have an obsession with puff pastry; actually even if i had never made it before today, i’ve always felt very confident about it.
But i thought it was time, now, to *really* make it. And if i wanted to make puff pastry i was not ready to make any kind of puff pastry, it had to be something special. Actually i think that if i am able to do a special kind of puff pastry i can make plain puff pastry as well.

As soon as i got Pierre Hermé’s Mes desserts au chocolat, my eye has been caught by a wonderfull picture of chocolate puff pastry. It had to be THE one.

This puff pastry is made by a simple flour-butter-water dough and a butter-cocoa powder dough.
You have to give the dough 6 turns, leaving at least 2 hours between each turn.
I just advise you to roll the dough thinner than 4mm when ready to bake as it will rise a lot (see picture).
While making it, i wasn’t sure how the pastry would turn out as i expected it to look like Pierre Herné’s. But the white layers of mine disappeared quite quickly (after 3 turns). Thus i was reassured to see that Keiko’s were much like mine. What a relief !

After making the pastry, i had to find a way to use it and the chocolate and vanilla millefeuille which the négatif du mille-feuille au chocolat [photographic negative of the chocolate filled millefeuille] looked so perfect.

All you make is a rich crème patissière [flour enriched custard]. And though i dind’t use orange zest in it, i thought it would looked pretty as a decoration.

I had a little problem with the creme patissière as it was too liquid. I guess i should have add a little more starch than the 55g stipulated in the recipe.
Anyway, i’m very happy with how the puff pastry came out. And this dessert is wonderful. You can really feel the taste of cocoa.
Posted by fanny who loves to forget labeling posts